The flow behavior of pressure-driven water infiltration through
graphene-based slit nanopores has been studied by molecular simulation.
The simulated flow rate is close to the experimental values, which
demonstrates the reasonability of simulation results. Water molecules
can spontaneously infiltrate into the nanopores, but an external driving
force is generally required to pass through the whole pores. The exit of
nanopore has a large obstruction on the water effusion. The flow
velocity within the graphene nanochannels does not display monotonous
dependence upon the pore width, indicating that the flow is related to
the microscopic structures of water confined in the nanopores. Extensive
structures of confined water are characterized in order to understand
the flow behavior. This simulation improves the understanding of
graphene-based nanofluidics, which helps in developing a new type of
membrane separation technique. (C) 2015 The Chemical Industry and
Engineering Society of China, and Chemical Industry Press. All rights
reserved.